Snapchat as a Marketing Tool

Snapchat is a social media mobile app that allows you to send videos or images that disappear after being seen by the receptor. There are approximately 26 million users in the U.S., and around 400 million snaps are sent daily.

The videos and images that you can send on the app are not the same as the ones you would see on Facebook or YouTube – videos on Snapchat have a short time limit and disappear after being seen. Now let’s think about how we can use this to reach out to our audience:

You need to understand the app. It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with high executives, this app is used in a very casual way. If you use it in a non-formal way, adding some filters from the app and with a sense of fun, you will be seen as more approachable and people will see your brand in a more personal way.

Use the videos. Even if they’re going to disappear right after being seen, you can still show a right amount to keep people interested in your brand. These videos don’t have to be that professional because of the time limit.

Show the personality of your brand. It is a social media app, so you should portray your brand in the way you want people to see it and demonstrate a more personal side of it. With the time limit of the app you’re able to show lots of videos and photos in a short time lapse. Use it to show what happens throughout your company’s processes.

Create a story. Brands use Snapchat to create a personal story that will be visible to users for 24 hours. Don’t be afraid to show a more personal side of your brand, this will attract people.

Live. Show your followers live moments of events happening around your brand.

Exclusive content. Deliver exclusive content only to your Snapchat followers. Thank them by sharing offers they wouldn’t find on other apps. Make them interested in sharing your Snapchat to other users or in other media. A good example of this could be a promo where they have to share one of your Snaps in other social media and tag you to win something.

Share your Snapcode. Share it on other social media so people can start following you.

Please share your opinion in the comments below.

-->

Rodrigo Garza

Virtual Reality and How to Use It Wisely

Marketers can now provide a fuller experience through Virtual Reality – showing their potential customers a specific place or event. With this new technology, marketers can reach out to new markets and get customers interested in what they present to them.

One market that is going to be very influenced by this new trend is the gaming industry. New games introducing the possibility to play using VR will allow players to enjoy this technology and play in a very ‘sophisticated’ way.

Facebook is showing more videos with the trend of displaying 360 videos on subjects that attract people and spark their interest in learning more about what they see. Perhaps in the future we will see VR introduced in our newsfeeds.

This new technology will introduce what normal photos or videos couldn’t show before: wider images, more context, and a very interesting approach to certain experiences. As an example, instead of just showing an image that says “Beautiful Hotel Near the Beach”, now companies can actually give potential customers a virtual tour and have them ‘experience’ what they have to offer, closing more deals and making the customer more intrigued.

If you offer trips, you can show the actual trip to potential customers and motivate them to travel. If you offer games, now you’re offering getting inside the game and seeing everything with your own eyes. If you offer products, you can develop strategies that involve seeing your product in VR and people engaging with it. The point is that this technology is here to stay and you can now offer an experience without necessarily purchasing it yet.

With more affordable options to acquire a virtual reality headset (one example being the Google Cardboard), it is possible for marketers to engage with this and incorporate it on their strategies. This will give brands a better opportunity to engage with their market. What are your thoughts about this?

-->

Rodrigo Garza

Insight on How “Reactions” Could Affect the Way Marketers Reach Out to People

We all know the basic “like” button. Now we can also love a post, show that it made us laugh with the “haha” reaction, show surprise with the “wow” reaction, and even ‘react’ with sadness or anger. The point here is: how is this going to affect the interaction between marketers and Facebook users? According to Mark Zuckerberg, “Love” is the most popular reaction so far.

When people react to a post, it will show the three top reactions to the post and the name of your top friends that reacted to that post.

Obviously, before sharing this new way to interact, Facebook did a lot of research analyzing how people reacted when users posted something positive: usually getting more likes than comments; and when people posted things with negative, sad or angry feelings: people reacted commenting to give support to this person rather than only liking the publication.

This is where it gets interesting. With ‘reactions’ now you can show more easily the way you feel about a post without the necessity to explain your reaction with a comment. With the like button sometimes you needed to write a comment to show how you felt about the post. Now you can show that it angered you or that it made you happy, or even that you’re surprised – without the urge to comment why. This may affect the way marketers interact with people.

Imagine a post about a new product. With written comments it is possible to analyze how people perceive the product. With “reactions” it might be that they only react to the post without the need to write a comment about it. Thus it will be harder to analyze if they didn’t liked the product or how to improve it. We should look at the other side of the coin. With ‘reactions’ it is easier for users to express an emotion without the need to comment negatively. This is great because people will not necessarily see a negative comment, just a ‘reaction’. This is just an example of what could happen, but we need to keep in mind that it is not the same for every company and that we will see how “reactions” impact these interactions over time.

Now, the Insight Facebook on your company page shows how many reactions your page received on your posts. The only thing that marketers should learn is how to interpret those reactions.

Facebook announced that all reactions, even the “Angry” one, will count as likes. People who react in any way to a specific post, will be more likely to see similar posts in the future on their newsfeed. Over time, Facebook will determine how to make this more accurate with the user likings.

It will be an interesting subject to deal with later when people learn the correct way to use the reactions and understand how this affects the company and its advertising campaigns.

What do you think about Facebook new feature? Do you “like” the reactions? Comment below and tell us what you think….

-->

Rodrigo Garza

Create an Appealing Twitter Account for Your Business

Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows you to write “Tweets” that are 140 characters or less. People use twitter to find out what’s happening in the world in real time and to connect with people and companies globally. Around 42% of the total users on Twitter follow their favorite brands. It could be beneficial for your company to enter this potential market and have a significant outreach of possible new customers.

As a recommendation, your profile should have your logo as profile picture. Use the name of your brand as username and add the link to your webpage and other social media accounts in your description. Also, it is a good idea to create a hashtag with the name of your brand for people to communicate easily with you.

Use the proper format to correctly write your Tweets: 1) start off with the text; 2) then the link you want to display; 3) add the attribution with @ if needed; 4) incorporate the hashtags, and 5) insert an image to make it more appealing.

I will now explain what you can do to engage correctly with the community on Twitter:

Engage on relevant news

Comment on the trends, news, and other important events that could impact your brand. Join conversations that focus on things that matter to your business – this way people will see you engaging and, once they find your content relevant, they will start following you.

Retweeting

Another way to draw attention to your Twitter account is to retweet content that is interesting to your circle. Sharing this content will benefit your account and the one you’re retweeting from. Share information from important media content sources like Forbes, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Buzzfeed or a source that is relevant with what you do.

Content

Share repeatedly to get to people. You need to create engaging content for people to share it with their followers. It could help if you write the word “retweet” in the tweet. Share pages, blog entries – give information that is relevant with the people you want to reach. Write tweets that generate conversations and hold the interest of your followers.

Teasing

To succeed doing this, you have to get people’s attention. You can create expectation in a series of tweets. Use this when launching a new product or a new feature – something new associated with your brand or an interesting promo. Create something worth following each tweet till the end.

Rewards

Provide your Twitter followers with exclusive content through promotions – something to reward them for keeping in line with your company through this platform.

Create a list

You can create lists of Twitter accounts and set them as private or public. You could create a private list to monitor your competition. You could also create a public list of Twitter accounts that you consider valuable in content and share it with your audience – this will draw more attention to your account.

Images and videos

These are important to engage with your followers. It is more reliable to be retweeted with an image or video in your tweet. Make sure to share images worth sharing or interesting videos that make people interested in what you publish.

Use the proper hashtags

Hashtags are the tools that you use on Twitter to reach a specific market. Use “Hashtagify” to research the most popular hashtags with the audience. Use “Rite tag” to rate the reach of your hashtags as you incorporate them. Get the MOST VISIBILITY for your tweets with these tools.

You can also use Twitter Analytics to evaluate your progress and discover influential people near your market. Make sure that you’re doing the right thing on your Twitter account to make the most of it.

-->

Rodrigo Garza

February 26, 2016

The Ultimate Guide to Exploit Your Instagram

We are talking about the fastest-growing app of the moment. This app has an estimated 400 million monthly active users (worldwide), and of those users the estimated number of users in the U.S. is around 77.6 million. In 2018, there will be approximately 106.2 million users in the U.S.. These numbers are estimated results taken from both Instagram’s own reports and other news reports.

It’s a good idea to start thinking about how to use this app to promote your brand or to reach your market in a very unique way. Instagram is a mobile-based social network used to share videos and photos, mainly. With it you can increase the customer engagement and loyalty by creating an image of your brand the way you want to be seen by social media users.

You need to take into consideration certain tips and strategies to be more reachable:

Hashtags. They show your post outside the circle of your followers. They let you reach more markets or customers that weren’t aware of your company. You could use popular hashtags, trends, or the ones that are searched by most people on the app. You could also go the other way and use very detailed hashtags to reach the persons that search for a specific thing – something more focused on what you offer. You need to experiment with hashtags – maybe using from 1 to 10 on each post (see what works best for you).

Keep your Theme. Build an identity with eye-catching content. You shouldn’t take random pictures and post them. Build a theme around your product or brand (the way you want to be seen by your followers) rather than just bombard people with pictures of promos or photos of your product. Create an image that could be associated with your product and slowly sell your brand in an attractive way.

Frequency. Create a content calendar to maintain an active presence. This will depend on how you want to reach your followers. The recommendable thing to do is to post daily to get to your followers and have the opportunity to reach new ones. If you think that posting more often (like twice a day) is going to increase your followers, just try it out. Experiment with different options and see what fits your brand until you find the perfect amount of daily posting.

Build a community. It is a social platform so use it as such. You need to engage with people, involve yourself around the interests of your company. This could be through hashtags, liking others person’s pictures, or commenting.

Profile perfection. Make sure that your profile is in touch with the theme you choose for the brand and also make your description and profile image attractive enough. You can show links to your other social media pages or to your website. Consider creating a specific hashtag associated with your brand that you can use in your pictures to make it your own and for people to associate it with your company.

Captions. You can write 2,200-character captions to engage your customers by microblogging within your posts, sharing a story or giving them a full description of the moment you’re sharing with them.

Tools. Use ICONOSQUARE, an app that allows you to access your account from your web browser and analyze the statistics of your posts on Instagram. Use SCHEDUGRAM to make a schedule of your posts in your account. INK361 offers a full service tool for viewing, scheduling and managing your posts. PIQORA will help you find things to attract an audience by showing them interesting posts.

Instagram adds. The app now allows you to advertise your business. You only need to create an ad on your Facebook account and pay for your business to reach more people through Instagram.

Tell us what do you think of these strategies or add another tip to use Instagram in the comments below.

-->

Alex Garrido

February 28, 2015

How Does Social Media Influence Consumer Behavior

Social media can be a useful platform to help a business connect and engage with its core customers. If done correctly, social media can prove to be a very powerful tool to help expand a business’s marketing efforts. Below are some interesting ways social media influences consumer behavior:

Social media works as an extension of the word of mouth marketing. In the past, you had to ask your friends about particular products or services. Today with social media, you know what your friends think about a product or service directly on your newsfeed. This elevated sense of awareness is what makes social media recommendations so powerful. Read this article.

Building social proof. It is a very well known fact that humans tend to be bias towards attitudes and behaviors that are common among peers. Social media can serve as a social validator of a product or service. The more interactions, likes, and positive comments, a particular product or service has, the more likely it is for other people to have a positive association with that particular brand.

Social media can influence consumer behavior subconsciously. Just like in the past, subliminal messages and images had a profound effect on television; today social media can be used for subconscious marketing. A brand can promote a particular piece of media that is both viral and has a subliminal message. When people engage with the media, they will be spreading the message as social proof and the subliminal message can help influence other non-engaged people.

Social media can be used to change brand attitudes. Consumer behavior is tied to several variables but among the most salient ones is positive brand perception. If people resonate with your product or service, this helps them reinforce the image they have of your brand and can help you increase customer loyalty. Among one of the most dominant factors that make social media a powerful tool is the fact that clients can become brand advocates and further expand the marketing message organically. See this publication.

Social media is a very powerful tool for public relations, brand management, and overall marketing. By creating a cohesive and consistent social media presence, your business can reap the benefits of social media’s ability to influence customer’s behavior.